Our History

In 1925 Hobart and Russell Creighton founded their family poultry business with 1,200 white leghorn chickens. They dedicated themselves to building a tradition that's now in its third generation. Today Creighton Brothers operates numerous growing and laying farms, a swine production facility, crop farming operations, a feed mill facility, and processing plant.

Where It Starts

In the early days of the business, the hatchery was the mainstay of its operation. Today, we hatch nearly ten million pullet chicks using a portion to replenish our layer facilities. Creighton Brothers operates its own feed mill where an immense amount of feed is mixed daily to supply our growing and laying farms. Our mill also provides feed for more than 1,500 farrow-to-finish sows in our swine operation. We supply a portion of our own grain to the feed mill by farming over 6,000 acres of crops.

Our layer facilities are spread throughout the countryside to protect them from the threat of transmitted diseases. All of the houses are operated "off-line" with the eggs brought into the central processing plant. At the farm, the eggs are placed on sanitized plastic flats and put immediately into coolers. This not only maintains, but actually extends, the eggs "just laid" freshness.

Eggs are selected from the farm each day and brought to the processing plant where they are washed, candled, weighed, and sent to designated packing lines for packaging. Eggs are packed in a variety of sizes for food service and retail grocery outlets. A full-time, on-site USDA inspector supervises strict quality standards along with our own in-house quality assurance. For our food service customers, the special Creighton Brothers white case is our guarantee for premium quality. Each case displays safe egg handling and preparation guidelines for the end user.

Creighton Brothers supplies our sister company, Crystal Lake Egg Products, with eggs for breaking that are uniform with consistent yolk color. All Crystal Lake products are processed and pasteurized under continuous USDA supervision and are certified Kosher. Crystal Lake offers a full line of egg products including whole eggs, egg whites, egg yolks, scrambled egg blends, sugar yolk, and salt yolk. The company also produces a variety of hard cooked and peeled eggs that are available in an all natural solution or our modified atmosphere pack. To round out its product line, Crystal Lake also offers a variety of pre-cooked and frozen egg products.